Superman Vol 1 423
| Editor1_1 = Julius Schwartz | Writer1_1 = Alan Moore | Penciler1_1 = Curt Swan | Inker1_1 = George Pérez | Colourist1_1 = Gene D'Angelo | Letterer1_1 = Todd Klein | Quotation = | Speaker = | StoryTitle1 = Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? | Synopsis1 = This is the first part of the imaginary story detailing the final fate of the pre-Crisis modern-day Superman. It is generally told as a flashback in the year 1997 by Lois Lane Elliot, who is retired from the Daily Planet and now a happy homemaker. The first part of the story goes as follows: On a day in 1987, as Superman returned from space, he saw that Metropolis has suffered major damage, which Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson say came from Bizarro. Superman enters a wrecked department store and learns the reason behind Bizarro's rampage: he considered himself to not be a "perfect imperfect duplicate", and so took the follow steps to change that situation. Realizing that Superman came from an alien world that was destroyed by a natural accident, Bizarro purposely destroyed his own world. Then, realizing that Superman never kills anyone, Bizarro went on a killing rampage through Metropolis. Finally, as he holds up a chunk of Blue Kryptonite and fatally exposes himself to its radiation, Bizarro realizes that since Superman must live, then he himself must die. Following this bizarre incident, Clark Kent gets ready to join his co-anchor Lana Lang in the WGBS news room when he receives two packages. The first smaller package is a group of Superman action figures that come to life, firing deadly heat-vision beams. The production crew watch as Clark Kent is attacked by the action figures' heat vision, figuring that he would never survive, when they saw that they exposed his Superman identity to them. The action figures now also speak in the voices of Toyman and the Prankster, the two villains behind this attack. They have Superman open up the second package, which contains the dead body of Pete Ross, whom the two criminals have extracted information about Superman from. Superman finds out where the two criminals are hiding and bring them to justice, but as his civilian identity is now compromised, he fears that as the villains who were nuisances to him were becoming killers, he can only wonder what will become of those who are killers. Speaking of which, Lex Luthor was up around the North Pole area where he finds the inert head of Brainiac in his robotic skeletal form when parts of his head started attaching themselves to Luthor's head, taking control of him. Brainiac now reveals that he is taking control of Luthor's body as part of a new form of partnership between the two, and that now he is seeking revenge against Superman for what he had done to him. Brainiac now guides Luthor's body back to civilization where he is to build a new ship for the robot. Back in Metropolis, a group of men gather around outside the Daily Planet building on a hot day when they start shooting harpoons from their chest, revealing themselves to be humans converted into Metallos. They assault the staff of the Daily Planet and cause Lois Lane to fall from a window when Superman appears to rescue her and to magnetize the Daily Planet globe to capture all the Metallos inside the building. When that was done, Superman transported Lois, Jimmy, Lana, Perry White, and his wife to his Fortress of Solitude where they would be safe. | Appearing1 = Featured Characters: * Superman Supporting Characters: * Krypto * Lois Lane Elliot * Perry White * Pete Ross * Legion of Super-Heroes :*Brainiac 5 :*Cosmic Boy :*Lightning Lad :*Invisible Kid :*Saturn Girl :*Supergirl Villains: * Bizarro No. 1 * Brainiac * Kryptonite Man * Lex Luthor * Metallo * Prankster * Toyman Other Characters: * Tim Crane Locations: * North Pole :*Fortress of Solitude * Metropolis :*Daily Planet Items: * Vehicles: * | AppearingCategories = No to eliminate auto-cat on comic pages. | Notes = * This is the final issue of the series under its original print run. The numbering sequence continues as Adventures of Superman. In 2006, the series reverted back to its original title beginning with issue #650. * This issue was reprinted in Across the Universe - The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore and Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?. * This storyline continues in . | Trivia = * Regardless of DC's editorial intentions, this "final" Superman story was presented by DC as being an "Imaginary Story", a Silver Age convention, revived especially for this occasion, that served to tell "What If?" stories that would have been considered series-killers if they were to happen in the "real" continuity of the comic. Thus, it is debatable whether or not this story should be considered canonical with the Superman series as it existed pre-Man of Steel reboot. * The story opens with a brief legend that ends thus: "This is an Imaginary Story... Aren't they all?" | Recommended = | Links = }}